Burj Dubai Tower Is Insane.
The Burj Dubai, the massive buildings below looked just puny in comparison in the video from above. The thing is more than 50% taller than the next tallest building (Taipei 101 -- see below) and also 50% taller than the CN Tower. Another crazy thing is that the elevators hit 64km/hour. Then again, when you consider that the tower is 8/10ths of a kilometer high -- I can see why you'd want that kind of speed.
I had the opportunity to visit Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Muscat/Oman, and Fujairah not long ago, visiting the region was a real eye opener.What I found most interesting was the amount of interest and investment that were being made not just in real estate, but what seemed like a real desire to build up a technology hub as well. That said, Dubai still felt quite unfinished and seemed even at that time when things were going full steam ahead, perhaps 5-10 years away from being a real "finished" city.
I had the opportunity to visit Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Muscat/Oman, and Fujairah not long ago, visiting the region was a real eye opener.What I found most interesting was the amount of interest and investment that were being made not just in real estate, but what seemed like a real desire to build up a technology hub as well. That said, Dubai still felt quite unfinished and seemed even at that time when things were going full steam ahead, perhaps 5-10 years away from being a real "finished" city.
What I also found interesting was the fact that it was build by Samsung C&T of South Korea (Samsung is insanely big -- turns out they have 276K employees with revenues of $170B a year), the same primary contractors as the Taipei 101 building (which I got to visit with, of all people, on a unforgettable trip with Stewart Butterfield and Mike Arrington as guests of the Taiwan government for a Web2 conference).
Totally random... I know. Now back to our original programming.